wilcal

PS: You should edit the bootloader by editing the /etc/lilo.conf file by hand as root in a terminal like kate, nano or gedit. If you need help with that, we can guide you through it.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Below is the lilo.conf file in the /etc directory of 2005

# File generated by DrakX/drakboot

# WARNING: do not forget to run lilo after modifying this file

default="LE_2005"

boot=/dev/sda

map=/boot/map

keytable=/boot/us.klt

prompt

nowarn

timeout=200

message=/boot/message

menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw

image=/boot/vmlinuz

label="LE_2005"

root=/dev/sda1

initrd=/boot/initrd.img

append="acpi=ht resume=/dev/sda5 splash=silent"

vga=788

read-only

image=/boot/vmlinuz

label="linux-nonfb"

root=/dev/sda1

initrd=/boot/initrd.img

append="acpi=ht resume=/dev/sda5"

read-only

image=/boot/vmlinuz

label="failsafe"

root=/dev/sda1

initrd=/boot/initrd.img

append="failsafe acpi=ht resume=/dev/sda5 devfs=nomount"

read-only

image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.11-6mdksmp

label="LE_2006"

root=/dev/sda7

initrd=/boot/initrd-smp.img

read-only

I have set up the partitions as follows:

LE 2005

Mount Point: /

Device sda1

Mount Point: swap

Device sda5

Mount Point: /home

Device sda6

LE 2006

Mount Point: /

Device sda7

Mount Point: swap

Device sda8

Mount Point: /home

Device sda9

05 /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.11-6mdksmp

06 /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.12-10mdksmp

As you can see from the above lilo.conf LE-2006 is pointing at the wrong

image. Drakeboot does not offer the 2.6.12 image for some reason. The

result of all of this is I can boot either OS but LE 2006 comes up without

the network running and lots of other strange problems. How do I change

the image target for 2006 in lilo.conf to target 12 instead of 11.

Thanks

Note LE 2006 beta 3 loads and runs fine on its own on the drive although there

is lots of stuff missing still.

What you need is at least two separate /root partitions (one for each distro) and one /home and one swap partition.....

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Can I create two seperate and discreet /root(1) /root(2), /swap(1) /swap(2), /home(1) /home(2)? I am using Lilo and the GUI partition tool in Mandriva to program boot.

What I am trying to do is evaluate LE 2005 vs 2006 beta x without using seperate HDs.

That I can already do.

Thanks for the help

I need a little coaching here on how to set up two completely different Mandriva versions on an empty HD such that I can, using Mandriva install GUI, Mandriva Lilo, boot either LE 2005 or 2006 beta3 as two completely seperate OS's just like they were on seperate HD's.

I can successfully install either OS on the drive and even resize /home down so there is plenty of space for another version of Mandriva. I can even get to the point were I have sda1, ect for the first version (LE 2005) and sda7 ect for beta3 but when i get done setting up Lilo and reboot beta3 it insists on using /linux 2.6.11 and not 2.6.12. Probably I just don't understand how to set up sdb using the Mandriva install GUI.

Thanks for any hints

LE 2005 is quite stable and I use it as my primary platform.

2006 beta3 is just that. Lots of bugs and things that you think are there, are not.

My question is this.  If I download the latest version of mandrake

and attempt to reinstall can I just remove the previous Linux install

from hdc and start fresh on hdd?

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Pretty much anything you try to do to install one

OS over the top of another could/may/might leave

stragglers, loose bits here and there. As I reuse

my removable rack drives I use a bootable 1.44MB

Floppy (Win98) and www.killdisk.com. Run killdisk for

a few minutes on the drive and the first sectors are

wiped clean. Dependent up the size of your disk

and how fast it is totally wiping it clean can

take from minutes to well over an hour.

My question is probably more about asking which

cong file I should be editing. When an external machine

be it an XP/SmartFTP (choke), Linux or Slowaris

attempts to connect to my Linux box (Mandriva lE 2005)

there is a lag time between when the external box

issues it's User Name and Password and the server

responds and opens the Users directory structure.

That lag time appears to be in the many seconds

as in about 20. Where is the conf file that allows

you to change that ( 5 secs, 1 sec ) or make it 0

seconds?

I own a D-link DCS-3220G Network Camera, a fun toy,

and it is not able to FTP single images into the LE

server. I suspect because of the lag time. Looking

at the auth.log here is an excerpt.

Aug 14 10:03:54 localhost ftp(pam_unix)[21675]: session opened for user wilcal by (uid=0)

Aug 14 10:03:54 localhost proftpd[21675]: localhost (192.168.0.99[192.168.0.99]) - USER wilcal: Login successful.

Aug 14 10:03:54 localhost ftp(pam_unix)[21675]: session closed for user wilcal

Aug 14 10:04:04 localhost ftp(pam_unix)[21716]: session opened for user wilcal by (uid=0)

Aug 14 10:04:04 localhost proftpd[21716]: localhost (192.168.0.99[192.168.0.99]) - USER wilcal: Login successful.

Aug 14 10:04:04 localhost ftp(pam_unix)[21716]: session closed for user wilcal

The Camera has been instructed to FTP a single image

every 10 seconds, connects, then disconnects without

transmitting the image. I suspect because Mandriva waits (lags)

some given period of time before allowing the user

to upload a file, in this case an image.

When LE opens an FTP session for a external User, in this case wilcal,

that user must be able to immediately transfer a file.

Thanks

Anyone care to comment on the benefits, detriments, and/or differences between Ubuntu and MDK2005LE?........

 

WoMBaT

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

WOW! There's a fun subject to talk about.

Hmmmmm. I have both running in my apt. LE is running

on a Celeron 1.7 that's my webserver (512MB, 160GB) and

every day work horse. Kinda like a brand new 2005 Mack Truck.

It's all shinny, tough and sparkly and carries most

of the load.

A 2nd LE box is a screaming fast P3.0 775 with a

gig of DRAM and a fast 80GB Maxtor SATA in a removable tray.

This box also is my DVD Player and multimedia machine.

This is my Corvette with several sets of easily exchangeable

racing tires.

The Ubuntu Hoary 5.04 is sit'n on an old Compaq P-350

circa 1998, 10GB HD and 192MB of DRAM. I drug this

ole box (was running Mandrake 8.2) out of the closet

and loaded Ubuntu in it so it could serve as the backup

webserver to the Celeron 1.7 webserver. It's kinda

like your Grandma's 98 Chevy. Old reliable, easy to start,

setup, maintain and use but doesn't get used much.

I/we (the company I work for) has fielded over 500

MSI computers (Hetis 915) into a nationaly known

retailer.

http://www.msicomputer.com/

One each per store. Those all went out early in 2004.

The OS is Mandrake 9.2.

I have two of these at home and have one running as

a webserver. OS is Mandriva LE 2005. The other runs

XP but boots and runs MOVE (Live CD) flawlessly.

They are all Celeron 1.7 or 1.8.

All 500+ of these things have run nearly flawlessly.

Mandriva loads and understands everything.

Ya can't ask for better then that.

I have found through my testing of various Linux Distros

that install lockups are common if not the norm.......

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Just to follow up my post here. Where "Kate OS"

completely fell on its sword, last night I downloaded

the latest ISO for Berry Linux just released.

That thing, except for one issue, plugged and Played.

My hardware is irrelevant to this thread. Move works

completely, Kate OS fell on it's sword and Berry Linux

almost totally works except for no sound.

How successful you are with any particular Distro

will be unknown until you give it a try.

Mandriva LE 2005 note

Also last night I installed the very latest

libdvdcss, popped in Men in Black II and that

devil played immediately in Totem. Nirvana.

I have found through my testing of various Linux Distros

that install lockups are common if not the norm. There

are various and lots of reasons for that. Two of the

more common are:

1) Burning your own ISO's can be problematic. Burn at

1/2 speed and always install using the same CD-Rom/DVD-RW

drive. I realize that will be a problem for most.

I use a removable SATA drive rack and tray system on

my test computer.

2) Unrecognized hardware. LAN connections, Serial

hard drives and unrecognized video circuits. All of the

above. If you are using a particularly newer computer

or a particularly older one expect mismatches.

I suggest, as did several here before me, give the Live CD

a try first before committing to the install. I have

done that with both Ubuntu and Mandriva (Move) and if

you can successfully bring up the Live CD version of

the Distro likely you can do the associated install.

I suggest that you start simple to get your confidence

up that your computer is just fine. Try

Damn Small Linux

Puppy Linux

are fun to tinker with and they get your confidence up

that your computer is just fine.

Last night I downloaded the latest "Kate OS" ISO, burned

the CD-RW and attempted to load it (Live CD). It promptly

fell on it's face with a message that I had to manually

configure the unknown LAN (Marvel Yukon Gigabit).

Move, Ubuntu, Knoppix and Puppy Linux all understand that

thing, install and run just fine. The creators of "Kate OS"

need to get their stuff together and get the latest drivers.

I'll try it again in a year.

My rule of thumb is that a laptop bought after year

2000 will last probably 3 years at most, while a laptop

bought before year 2000 can last for 5 or even more.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

OMG that is truly a condemning comment. You are

implying that newer technology is worse then older.

Mercedes has seen this as they packed more and more

bells and whistles into their autos reliability fell

off.

Bah. I guess I'm just spoilt with my iBook. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I would not disagree that there is an occasional laptop

out there that is reliable. But that is the exception

not the rule.

I have found that by using the Live-CD versions

of a potential Distribution as a test that will

give you a pretty good idea if a full install will

work. In the case of Mandriva I use MOVE. If you

can boot a Live-CD Move on a system, and it all

works, it's likely you will be able to install

Mandriva LE 2005 on that same system.

Also, if you are creating your own install disks

from ISO try to use the same system/drive as you

created them on and create the disks at 1/2 speed.

Mandriva LE 2005 use MOVE (Live-CD)

Ubuntu use the Ubuntu Live-CD

Laptops have traditionally, and still carry on that

tradition, have an extremely high problem rate.

Consumer Reports has indicated that regardless of

brand they saw a 20%+ failure rate new and right out

of the box among laptops. Another consumer reporting

agency indicated that all, 100%, of laptops will

require service in its expected 3 year life. If you

own one, or are anticipating owning one, the extended

warranties are highly recommended.

Aside from the high failure rates laptop manufactures

take great liberties on what's inside the can. The

fact that a laptop is branded Gateway or Dell or

whatever they are not the manufacturer. The real

manufacture is any number of nameless Far East

manufacturers contracted to produce this or that

laptop with this or that feature(s).

Recently Gateway enjoyed a plague of CD/DVD drive

failures. A fellow employee was the victim of

this plague. Although the Gateway laptop had

the same name and model the original manufacturer

decided to change drive supplier mid stream picking

one that proved to exhibit a near 100% failure rate.

Apple Computer is presently experiencing a 20% plus

hard drive failure rate in it's laptop computers.

I was told by one unfortunate owner of one of these

machines that replacement drives are backed up

for months.

1st Rule. Don't buy a laptop and expect to

get a reliable computer.

2nd Rule. If you insist on buying one of these

things purchase the extended warranty.

3rd Rule. Do not count on your laptop to be

your primary computer. It's a portable device

and not to be counted on when needed.

4th Rule. Don't expect a laptop from Brand Name

XYX, Model Number MD-234A, Serial Number 123943

to be the same internally as laptop Brand Name

XYZ, Model Number MD-234A, Serial Number 123944

to be identical internally with its siblings.

So, bottom line, suggestions on this or that

Laptops is likely to be based on experience

with a single machine with little or no knowledge

of the entire deployed base.

My preference is Gnome and I can swing either way at home or at work.

Be careful of the hardware you choose. Using bleeding

edge technology hardware results in many of the

Linux Distros not knowing how to deal with them.

SATA drives treated as SCSI devices by some MoBo's

will result in not being able to install some Distros.

My MoBo sports the Marvell Yukon Gigabyte LAN, not

understood by many Distros

In the world if Linux Distros older hardware is

beautiful.

Hello, this is my current setup:..........

...

....

Any other ideas, cautions, suggestions?

 

Thanks,

 

Latem

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yes, may I suggest the following as this is what I have

done in the past and am doing now as I upgrade my

computer platform(s). Instead of mounting the hard drives

permanently into the machine I put them in a

rack mount and trays. The present setup uses racks and

trays from Kingwin and they are SATA drive(s).

This set up allows me to try this and try that

by simply shutting down the system, changing out

the drive for another, and starting all over. This

without blowing away all the work you've done.

I have brought up my new computer on Knoppix,

Ubuntu, Fedora and Mandriva. Plus, horrors, I have a

fully functional drive and tray with Windows XP SP2

Home Edition. You can kinda kick around Distros to

your hearts content till you find the one that works

best for you and your hardware.

The first bootable device on my machine is the

floppy, then the CD/DVD drive then the HD(s).

A bootable Win98 Floppy with the Ultimate CD Live CD

can do wonders for your confidence in your hardware

platform. Hey, if this or that install doesn't work

give it the boot, literally. Erase the hard drive

and reload again with something else.

I just installed Mandriva LE 2005 and was going

through the Apache httpd2.conf file looking for the

Proxy on/off sections. Remembering that

Mandrake 9.2 installed Apache with proxy on

I wanted to make sure that it's off otherwise

the world uses my little webserver to send spam.

No can find section.

Does Mandriva LE 2005 install Apache 2 proxy turned

on or off. And if on how to turn it off.

Thanks

Tools, tools, tools that’s where Mandriva excels. Yep hardware detection can be better but hardware platforms and flavors change daily. My own latest Linux hardware challenge is the Marvel Yukon Gigabit LAN. Mandriva LE 2005 figured it out right out of the ISO. Many Distros didn’t.

Lets face it, hardware manufactures build for XP Home/Pro all stop. I don’t blame them. But Distros using RPM and DEB install/update systems are, IMO, actually better then Billy Gate’s platform for application selection and support. In fact if anything there are just too many to choose from. Lots of tools to Play with.

I burned a cdrw-disk with InCd in Windows when I had a Windows on my PC.....

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I find writing Linux ISO anything, CD or DVD, in

a Windows environment is an imperfect art. In fact

I stay away from DVD and use a Mandrake 9.2 system

with a CD-Rom drive run at half speed to burn install

and backup disks. Ya get fewer hockey pucks that way.

:o

Solved

As mentioned in the first posting in this thread

the MoBo sets up the CD/DVD-Rom as a SCSI drive.

So for whatever reason Mandriva LE 2005 sets the fstab

file such that the CD/DVD-Rom drive to not

automatically mount the drive at boot. The initial

line in fstab is as follows:

/dev/sr0 /mnt/cdrom iso9660 user,iocharset=iso8859-1,noauto,ro,exec 0 0

I simply changed this line to be as follows:

/dev/sr0 /mnt/cdrom iso9660 user,iocharset=iso8859-1,auto,ro,exec 0 0

Rebooted the system and the CD/DVD-Rom drive appears

on my Gnome desktop and operates properly.

Solved

This one I stumbled across looking for something

else. Here goes. During installation Mandriva LE 2005

asks you to make a decision on the Security Level

of your system. Here is that screen:

http://shots.osdir.com/slideshows/slidesho...ase=334&slide=5

The default choice here is Security "High". That will

effectively not allow any external access to your

Mandriva Box preventing external access

to Apache and Webmin. If during the installation

you change that setting to Security "Standard"

you will be able to access the websites on your new

Mandriva Box from the LAN and ultimately the WAN

if you choose to allow that through your Router.

I suspect everyone has stuggled with this one.

Thank you all for the hints

FWIW

I have two Mandrake boxes on the LAN. A 9.2 and this new LE 2005. From the LE 2005 box I can ping the 9.2. From the two XP boxes on the same LAN I can ping the 9.2. The LE 2005 can't be pinged from anything on the LAN but can ping itself.

mnt/cdrom won't show anything in it unless a CD is in the CD drive.  If you put one in, have you checked whether the drive then appears on your desktop?  Or is accessible through Gnome?

 

If not, when you have a CD in the drive, in the CLI go to /mnt/cdrom and see if anything is listed and report back.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thanks for the help. No, for some reason Gnome does not see the CD/DVD drive. I checked again to see if I could run cdrecord in su mode in a terminal in Gnome and it rreally does work. Putting any kind of CD or DVD disc into the drive makes no difference. One thing I am going to try is to go through the install process again and see if there is someting I missed there.

Thanks.

My tip of the day is that when you are playing with multiple OS's, as I do,

www.killdisk.com

run from a bootable Win98 floppy is a hugely valuable tool. It will completely

fill the disk drive from the MBR sector all the way to the end with "0"'s. It's the only

way to reload a new OS of any kind.

Reburned all three CD-R's at 4x instead of 8x and have now reloaded Mandriva LE 2005 off

that new 3-disk set at least 4x successfully.